


His Lordship's Latest Start

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Frederica - Georgette Heyer, HEYER Georgette - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Class Differences, Class Issues, F/M, Magic-Users, Pre-Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Vernon Dauntry, Marquis of Alverstoke, had been quite determined to snub the Merrivilles before ever he set foot in their house; the sight that met his eyes as he entered their shabby drawing-room made him all the more so. While the young lady who raised her head from her letters and stood to greet him was dressed elegantly, and wore an air of well-bred assurance that he approved even though he was surprised by it, he could see her gathering the threads of the power he most disliked about her.Inwardly, he cursed Charles Trevor. A mushroom was one thing. A mushroom who sought to use glamour to influence him, or gain his interest, was quite another.***Vernon Dauntry, Marquis of Alverstoke, makes the acquaintance of the excessively magical Merrivilles.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redsnake05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/gifts).



> This was a fandom_stocking 2016 gift for redsnake05; I got a bit carried away with the worldbuilding but it _should_ all be explained within the text.
> 
> Some of the dialogue is, of course, yanked from _Frederica_ itself, as this is a slightly wonky retelling of Frederica and Alverstoke's first meeting - one of the most pivotal scenes in the novel. Hopefully what I wrote and what Heyer wrote is fairly obvious to anyone who's read the novels.

_[Wicken], with his lord’s valet, his steward, his housekeeper, and his head groom knew all about the Merrivilles; and what they referred to as **his lordship’s latest start** had been for days the main topic for discussion in the Room._

_-Frederica, Georgette Heyer_

 

Vernon Dauntry, Marquis of Alverstoke, had been quite determined to snub the Merrivilles before ever he set foot in their house; the sight that met his eyes as he entered their shabby drawing-room made him all the more so. While the young lady who raised her head from her letters and stood to greet him was dressed elegantly, and wore an air of well-bred assurance that he approved even though he was surprised by it, he could see her gathering the threads of the power he most disliked about her.

 

Inwardly, he cursed Charles Trevor. A mushroom was one thing. A mushroom who sought to use glamour to influence him, or gain his interest, was quite another.

 

He touched the fob of his watch, and let her see that he did so. It was a charm against precisely this sort of behaviour; she flushed slightly, and lifted her head, but made no further move. The faint shimmer of her glamour, quite invisible to anyone without any power - and probably far more visible to someone with more than the merest hint of true-magic, which was all Alverstoke possessed - swirled about her skirts, but made no move to touch anyone or anything else. It was as if she had only drawn on it for her confidence, as many people with some glamour did. A little held close to yourself was enough to project a calm you did not possess; it was just the same as marshalling your own composure, except that it had the potential to make those of a suspicious nature very wary.

 

Well, it might be so.

 

Pointedly, he dropped the watch fob, and kept a careful eye on her. The sheen of her power did not move. "Have I the honour of addressing Miss Merriville?"

 

"Yes," Miss Merriville said. She stepped forward to meet him, but kept her hands folded before her, as pointedly as he had dropped his charm: physical touch made it far easier to lay a glamour on an unsuspecting victim. "I am Miss Merriville. How do you do? Pray forgive me! I wasn't expecting this visit."

 

He felt his face twitch, and suppressed his amusement sternly. "Then pray forgive me! I was under the impression that you desired me to visit you."

 

"Yes," Miss Merriville said, with great composure, "but I had quite given up expecting you to call. Which didn’t surprise me, because I daresay you thought it a tiresome imposition, besides being, perhaps, much too _coming_!"

 

 "Not at all," the Marquis of Alverstoke said, in a tone designed to convey that it had been extremely so. Miss Merriville did not noticeably react, and he was interested to observe that her power did not either. It was unusual, to see such a young lady with such close command of her emotions and their connection to her power; Alverstoke was reasonably sure she could not be above four-and-twenty.

 

 "Well, I’m afraid it was," Miss Merriville said, taking a seat. The Marquis took one likewise. "The thing is that from having lived all my life in Herefordshire I am not yet perfectly acquainted with London customs." A smile leapt into her eyes, and Alverstoke had to school his face to stop himself responding. "You can have no notion of how very hard it is to conform to propriety, when one has been – you may say – the mistress of the house for years and years!"

 

"On the contrary! I’ve every notion of it!"

 

Her laughter was lovely, clear and rippling like a stream, and when Alverstoke paid careful attention he knew it wasn't the slightest bit touched by glamour. "No, have you? Then perhaps it won’t be so difficult to explain to you why I – why I solicited the favour of your visit!"

 

Alverstoke couldn't stop his mouth twitching this time. "What an admirable phrase! Did you commit it to memory? I thought that your - solicitation – was, rather, a summons!"

 

It might have been. She could, perhaps, have used her glamour on Charles to persuade that most admirable of secretaries he needed to convey her missive to Alverstoke at once; but Alverstoke thought not, even though that could have explained the discrepancy between the handsome woman he saw and the pearl past price Charles had described. Charles, though lacking even a speck of power of any sort, was remarkably clear-sighted, and besides that was never without the charms Alverstoke had given him to prevent just such an occurrence. More than one otherwise prettily-behaved barque of frailty of Alverstoke's acquaintance had significant glamour at their disposal and a wholly unscrupulous attitude to using it.

 

"Oh, dear!" Miss Merriville exclaimed, looking comically downcast. "And I took such pains not to appear to be a _managing_ female!"

 

"In my experience," Alverstoke said, "most ladies with your talents are."

 

There was a small, frozen silence. Miss Merriville's chin came up slightly. "I collect that you refer to my power."

 

Alverstoke inclined his head.

 

"My father may not always have behaved as a gentleman ought," Miss Merriville said very calmly, "but he would never have tolerated such behaviour in any of his daughters, or, for that matter, his sons. My mother would not have suffered such - such _underhandedness_ in her children, either. I do not misuse my talents, Lord Alverstoke. I am sorry if you find my power suspicious."

 

Alverstoke felt himself rebuked. "I apologise, Miss Merriville, that was - foolish of me."

 

Miss Merriville inclined her head. It was an intentionally perfect copy of his earlier gesture.

 

"I deserved that," he said aloud, and that sparkle leapt into Miss Merriville's grey eyes once more.

 

She did not reply directly, but said: "I am afraid I am a managing female - but under the circumstances I really could _not_ help it. Mamma died very young, and I am the eldest; my father had a stroke, several years ago, which was a blessing -"

 

"Indeed?" the Marquis said, slightly startled.

 

"- yes, for it prevented his wasting the estate entirely, and indeed he was far calmer and happier afterwards. So you see that I was forced to take the reins, for Harry was only sixteen when Papa had his stroke; he has but just come of age. Mr Salcombe, our lawyer, and I have been able to manage, a little - and now I hope that the estate will be in _tolerable_ shape for Harry, if he will only be careful for a few years. Indeed, if he will only spend a few years at Graynard, after he is finished at Oxford, I think the estate will go on in excellent fashion. The country rises to him, you know, as it has done to generations of Merrivilles. It will be healthy in his charge."

 

Alverstoke blinked at this. The redoubtable Miss Merriville sounded reasonably confident, but she also sounded as if she were trying to convince herself of something. Alverstoke sorted carefully through the notion that a young scapegrace son of Fred Merriville's might be persuaded to live quietly in Herefordshire for several years, set that aside, and arrived at a secondary consideration. "Your brother is a hedgewitch?"

 

"That is a very coarse way of putting it," Miss Merriville said, eyeing him. "But yes. If you insist on the term - although I beg you will not do so in his presence! - he is a hedgewitch. Our grandfather Merriville was, too."

 

Alverstoke knew that hedgewitchery was perfectly unexceptional - seen in many of the finest gentry families, with their roots deep in the country - and there was a sort of honour to it, in that a gentleman's income came from the land, he was strongest in his ancestral seat, and if his heart should beat in time with the hallowed soil on which that seat stood, so much the better. But such individuals generally did not admit to it in London, where magic was either tricks at parties or great works of state.

 

"Great heavens, Miss Merriville," Alverstoke said mildly. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"

 

"Well, there's Harry," Miss Merriville said, "and my sister Charis, and my youngest brothers, Jessamy and Felix. Felix is the very youngest; he is twelve. It is really on Charis's account that we have come to London."

 

"Next you will be telling me that they are all true-mages of the first water," Alverstoke remarked genially, toying idly with his quizzing-glass.

 

Miss Merriville left a slight, telling pause. "Well," she said. "Not _exactly_."

 

Alverstoke fumbled his quizzing-glass and nearly dropped it.

 

"Jessamy is a true-mage," Miss Merriville said, ignoring this. "He is studying hard - to go to Oxford, you know, and then he plans to become a magister."

 

An honourable course for a gentleman's son without lands, Alverstoke noted; the fourth choice available, alongside church, army and law. He nodded.

 

"Charis... knows how to hold household," Miss Merriville said, and her small, straight nose wrinkled. "It is not a gift for which I know any name, but it _is_ a gift. For years, we simply thought she was particularly skilled at needlework, but we are now forced to conclude that that is not quite all she can do."

 

Alverstoke nodded again. It was a power; he recognised the description. But it was not a common one among ladies of quality - it was one that would be highly prized in a housekeeper, or a lady's maid. "I would not advise her to let that be known."

 

"I do not," Miss Merriville said, "and naturally, I rely on your discretion."

 

He raised an eyebrow at her. It would do her good to have her bluff called; she didn't know him from Adam, after all, and in his opinion she trusted him too readily.

 

That elegant head lifted in challenge again. "I may be country-bred, my lord, but I am not a fool, and my judgement is sound enough. I know you will not tell anyone."

 

He raised a hand. He seldom concerned himself with what was kind, but he felt it was, perhaps, a little cruel to test someone who plainly carried her entire family on those straight shoulders. "Touché. I will mend my manners, Miss Merriville."

 

"I should like to see _that_ ," Miss Merriville retorted, then coloured faintly and hurried on. "Felix - we cannot be certain of Felix, it may be merely an exceptional talent for the sciences, but I do suspect that if he hadn't some hint of smith-skill he would have blown himself up by now."

 

Alverstoke covered his astonishment that Miss Merriville was cheerfully owning to a younger brother with such a low power with astonishment that the youngest Merriville boy habitually behaved in an explosive fashion. "He  - er - enjoys blowing things up?"

 

"Not precisely. He carries out experiments - he is very interested in - oh, steam, and mechanical things." Miss Merriville shook her head. "My understanding of the subject is very imperfect, but I do know that he occasionally sets a table on fire, or blows out a window."

 

Alverstoke eyed her with fascination. "I assume your mother's family was positively redolent with all sorts of magic?" He knew Merriville had married to disoblige his family, and had not brought his wife into society; she could not have been very tonnish, if such gifts ran so strongly in her blood.

 

Miss Merriville looked at him in a fashion that made Alverstoke wonder if she had a little truth-seer to her as well, to match the glamour. "No," Miss Merriville said, with impeccable dignity. "Though you are not alone in your assumptions. Our Merriville relatives have always felt similarly. She was the oldest daughter of a vicar, and there has been no magic on that side of our family for many generations. No, our gifts come entirely from the Merriville side."

 

Alverstoke considered himself reprimanded, and wondered how many more gentle but definitive set-downs he was destined to receive from a lady more than ten years his junior.

 

Miss Merriville drew a deep breath, and said: "In any case, it is really the aid of _Lady_ Alverstoke I wished to ask."

 

"Short of necromancy, you may find that difficult," Alverstoke said. "My mother has been dead for several years."

 

"How provoking!" Miss Merriville said unguardedly. "I was sure you would be married!" She caught herself. "And necromancy is a - a very improper subject for discussion! I am surprised at you, Lord Alverstoke."

 

Alverstoke suppressed a desire to laugh. "Not nearly as surprised as I am, I do assure you. I apologise for my - er - single blessedness, but really, Miss Merriville, I cannot be expected to marry to oblige a cousin twice removed I have never previously met. In any case," he added, suddenly noticing a far more pertinent anomaly in her remarks, "why is it so necessary to your request, which you still have not divulged to me, that I should be married?"

 

"Because," Miss Merriville began, and then - unaccountably, and, so far as Alverstoke could tell, most uncharacteristically - stopped, blushed, and fidgeted with the striped cloth of her gown.

 

"I said," she began, eventually, "that it was on my sister's account that we had come to London. She is - is very beautiful, and very sweet, and very gentle, and I wish her to have every opportunity of forming an eligible connection. There are - simply put, there are no such opportunities near Graynard. We are not even close to a watering-place!"

 

A horrible suspicion was dawning upon Alverstoke. Perhaps he had unintentionally ill-wished himself by teasing Charles that the only lady left to demand a ball of him was Charles' mysterious protégée. "I trust Miss Charis is reasonably well-dowered? Eligible connections, you know, are not formed by girls with no fortune besides their faces."

 

"Mama's fortune was settled on her daughters," Miss Merriville said, taking far less offence than she had to his ill-judged comments about her power. "We have £5,000 each - and if the Misses Gunnings could snare a duke without _half_ that, well, I think I am not being too ambitious in hoping for - for something eligible for Charis. I have no ambitions for myself, you understand, but my sister..."

 

Had Miss Merriville not been working up to ask him to find some way of introducing herself and her - no doubt extremely tiresome - sister into society, Alverstoke would have been touched by her selflessness. As it was, he was very nearly irritated. "You must love her very much."

 

"She is my sister," Miss Merriville said, as if this were all that was necessary to explain her extraordinary determination.

 

Alverstoke, who had never stirred himself - or wanted to stir himself - to assist his sisters beyond necessity, said nothing.

 

"Do you think you can help us?" Miss Merriville asked. "I admit that my original plan seems to be impossible, but..."

 

"No," Alverstoke said, and was almost sorry for it. "I am afraid, Miss Merriville-"

 

At this point, a boy of perhaps twelve erupted into the room, followed hastily by a slightly older stripling.

 

"Frederica!" the boy cried, "it was nothing but a _fudge-"_ and promptly tripped over the edge of a rug and fell headlong.

 

His senior informed him, in crushing tones, that he was an ape; but since he also raised a hasty hand and sent forth a net of silver fire that caught the younger boy before any serious accident could occur, Alverstoke was forced to conclude that he did think his companion had some worth after all.

 

He looked at Miss Merriville. 'Frederica': what a curious name, but no more so than any of her siblings' names. "Master Jessamy and Master Felix Merriville, I presume?"

 

"Yes," Miss Merriville said, with composure. "Jessamy, Felix, come and make your bows to the Marquis of Alverstoke."

 

Jessamy Merriville clapped his hands in the approved fashion and released his younger brother, who had been writhing and complaining in the net of fire. He then produced an extremely correct bow, and said, with impeccable courtesy, "Sir - I beg pardon, Felix did not know that our sister was entertaining a visitor."

 

Alverstoke inclined his head gravely, entertained despite himself. He noted that Jessamy was dressed with unusual neatness for a boy of sixteen, and was generally far tidier than Felix, who looked as if he had recently fallen into a bush and rolled across the street, and was missing at least one button. Jessamy, however, was out of breath; Felix was not. Alverstoke deduced - incorrectly, on this occasion, but not without justice - that Felix had got himself into some sort of trouble, and Jessamy had been forced to chase him out of it, all the way to the drawing room in Wimpole Street.

 

Felix Merriville sketched an approximation of a bow, eyed the Marquis with mild but decidedly limited interest, and then addressed himself passionately to Miss Merriville. The labyrinthine narrative that ensued, encompassing an engineer called Trevithick, Fitzroy Square, Montague House, the unconscionable behaviour of a gentleman who had refused to give Felix directions and had told Jessamy to keep his fool brother under control, locomotives, engines, and an apparently unrelated individual by the name of Mr Rushbury, both confused and amused the Marquis. Jessamy was beginning to look restive, and the Marquis was wondering how best to distract Miss Merriville from the tale of woe being poured into her attentive ears, when voices and footsteps were heard on the stair.

 

The Marquis turned his head. He was therefore privileged to observe an enormous shaggy dog on a sturdy lead entering the drawing room, towing a young lady of genuinely exceptional beauty, who was frowning slightly at a button in her hand.

 

"Felix-love, is this your button? Only Lufra found it on the stair and tried to eat it."

 

"Probably," Master Felix Merriville said absently, yanking on his oldest sister's skirt to regain her attention and continue his story. "It don't signify, Charis. Frederica -"

 

"One moment, Felix," Mis Merriville said quietly.

 

The unfortunately-named Lufra sniffed hospitably over to inspect Alverstoke, who was so distracted by the picture presented by Miss Charis Merriville that he almost suffered muddy paw-prints on his clothing that would have caused his valet to faint or resign. He preserved himself from this indignity, and acquainted himself with the dog, but kept his eyes on Charis - though not so much that he did not realise Miss Merriville was watching him extremely carefully, and that her power was still curling around her skirts, quiescent.

 

Miss Merriville presented him to her sister and to her aunt. Her aunt, a hatchet-faced female of a testy disposition, eyed Alverstoke with great disdain and left the room. Miss Charis Merriville made polite conversation, but her mind - such as it was; while she seemed to have the sweet disposition Miss Merriville attributed to her, she had none of her sister's wit or force of character - was very plainly focused on the imminent necessity of removing her youngest brother from the room and reuniting his lost button with his coat.

 

She was singularly lovely; Alverstoke thought he had never seen a beauty like her. Delicate of feature and complexion, elegant of figure, gold-haired, and possessed of a pair of celestial blue eyes, she moved with grace and a charming unconsciousness of her own appearance, and dressed with a taste and propriety that only served to emphasise her enchantingly pretty looks.  He quite saw why Miss Merriville had been determined to give her sister a London season, and why she was so confident that Charis could establish herself creditably, even with only £5,000 and a slightly muddied family name in her favour.

 

 _It would be a salutary lesson for Louisa and Lucretia_ , Alverstoke thought, and then, hard on the heels of that thought: _And I certainly would not be bored._

 

Over Charis's shoulder, he met Miss Merriville's bright grey eyes.

 

 _By God, I'll do it_ , he thought - and though neither of them realised how closely they mirrored each other, they both smiled.

 


End file.
